Ride to work.

The population of Kiev is around 3mln. people. City lies on both banks of Dnieper river. The eastern (left) side is smaller than the western (right) but consists of mostly dormitory districts. So there is a dense everyday traffic between these two parts, especially in morning and evening rush hour. There are two subway lines and only five road bridges joining both banks. And every Spring inevitably begins with some repair works of the bridges pavement which usually continues up to the September. It sounds awfully silly but it is a fact of life here, sort of local custom. Every year drivers curse the workers and authorities while standing in traffic jams before one or another bridge.

I live on the left (east) bank of Dnieper river while the location of my full-time work is on the right (west) bank. This May started the repair of left-to-right (east-to-west) side of the South Bridge. So every morning here is a local hell for drivers from all around blocks and satellite cities.

How it looks you can see on this video. The beginning of ride is about 7:50-8:00 AM, time before the main traffic tide.

So that’s why I prefer to use cafe-racer mostly at working days. The only alternative is a subway.

You also may admit from this video that Ukrainians perceive application of Traffic Laws in Ukraine rather as recommendation than a rule. And so, it is because of lack of law enforcement. The automatic radar system doesn’t operate yet and a police patrols take a little care about rules violators, so we have a good portion of chaos in our traffic.